(Written by F. Perry Wilson, MD, MSCE)
This week: Would you like to save about a billion dollars?
This article, appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association,[1]may have the solution.
Many of the studies I discuss are complex, with advanced statistical concepts and lots of subtleties of interpretation. This one? Well, it can basically be summed up as follows:
This is Exforge, a pill containing both the angiotensin receptor blocker valsartan and the calcium-channel blocker amlodipine. It costs $8.21 per pill.
This is two pills, the angiotensin-receptor blocker valsartan and the calcium channel blocker amlodipine. Together, they cost 96 cents.
You get it, right? The combo drug is way, way more expensive.
And that’s largely because, as current law stands, pharmaceutical companies can extend some market exclusivity of a drug that is nearly about to come off patent by mixing it with some other drug.
The authors of the JAMA paper asked a simple question: How much money could we save if Medicare bought the constituent pills instead of the combo pill?
The answer? About a billion dollars.
The authors used data published by Medicare, which identifies the number of individuals taking various drugs and the price.
Written by F. Perry Wilson, MD, MSCE
